Men's Hockey: Princeton splits road games, earns 6th seed in playoffs

“After this weekend, we’re focused on the positives,” said senior defenseman and co-captain Taylor Fedun after the loss to Union. “We played two fairly good games against two very good teams.”

It was poetic justice that the Tigers began their weekend slate against Rensselaer with a shorthanded goal from freshman forward Andrew Calof. After all, two shorthanded goals last Sunday by No. 3 Yale played a key role in the team’s 5-4 loss to the Bulldogs.

“I wouldn’t say I was laughing about [Calof’s goal], but certainly the thought crossed my mind that, ‘What goes around comes around,’” head coach Guy Gadowsky said on Saturday night. “At that point we had a lot of game left to go.”

To their credit, the Tigers continued to play well throughout the game. Rensselaer goaltender Allen York saw a total of 44 shots for the night, and freshman forward Andrew Ammon’s power-play goal put Princeton up 4-2 toward the end of the second period. The Engineers pulled one back in the final frame, but the night belonged to the visitors.

“I thought we played a very good game,” Fedun said. “We had a ton of shots on net, a lot of chances. I thought the score might have been a little closer than the game actually was.”

Similarly, the score on Saturday did not do justice to the Tigers’ play. The offense looked dangerous once again, but Union goaltender Keith Kinkaid countered with 34 saves in a winning effort, and the Dutchmen capitalized on their power play by converting three of four opportunities.

“We had to kill nine minutes of penalties in the first period,” Gadowsky said. “They got two [power-play goals in the period]; the second one was very late on a five-minute major ... The next two periods we played pretty well five-on-five but just couldn’t get anything past them.”

Saturday’s result clinched the regular season ECAC title for the Dutchmen and dropped Princeton to No. 6 in the tournament. While the Tigers missed out on a first-round bye, their placing was good enough to earn them home ice this coming weekend in their matchup with St. Lawrence (10-19-5, 6-15-1).

Princeton swept the season series against the Saints, putting up five goals in each contest.

“It’s going to be an exciting playoff run,” Fedun said. “We’ve played two very good games against [St. Lawrence] this year, so it’s going to be an exciting weekend at Baker.”

Exciting or not, the team is looking to make their playoff run as deep as possible. Both Gadowsky and Fedun said that improving the penalty kill — a team strength for much of the season — will be essential to their success.

“We’ve had stretches where we’ve played extremely well, and we’ve had individual games where we’ve played great,” Gadowsky said. “I feel good. I feel good about our chances going in [to the tournament], and I think we have a lot of components ... It’s just a matter of putting it all together. I think we have as good a chance of doing that as any team.”

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Fedun said that the team would work hard in practice this week to correct their struggling specialty-teams form. And why not? If the Tigers don’t make it past St. Lawrence, it will be the last time Fedun and the other seven seniors on the team take the ice for a college hockey game.

“I feel like I would pretty much do anything to make sure we can extend our season,” Fedun said. “Having been able to go to the rink and practice every day and play games and hang out with the guys is something that keeps me going ... To make a final push in our senior year would be a great way to cap off the four years we’ve had as a senior class.”